By Rabbi Rachel Esserman

Every author, consciously or unconsciously, chooses a writing style when deciding how to tell a story. That’s true of fiction and nonfiction, and can play a major role in how readers feel about the exposition and characters. Some novels contain lush descriptions of characters’ feelings, something commonly found in melodrama. Others offer a more sparse tone with characters who nonchalantly perform horrifying actions as if they were everyday, unimportant occurrences. This low-key approach means that sometimes a simple decision or statement only offers emotional depth when readers supply added layers of meaning. This sparse style can be found in Giaime Alonge’s impressive novel “The Feeling of Iron” (Europa Editions). The 440-plus page work focuses on two different timelines: the 1940s with an emphasis on World War II, concentration camps and the founding of the state of Israel; and the 1980s, which looks at the failures of communism and the battles between the Soviet-supported forces and the American-backed Contra in South America.
At first, “The Feeling of Iron” felt like a puzzle with its short chapters offering snapshots of a wide variety of characters. Readers need to piece together how these disparate people are connected, although all are featured again at some point, even if only for one important moment. The work demands patience because the puzzle pieces only begin to make sense about 100 pages into the novel, but it’s worth the effort. Several main characters, though, are the true focus of the novel: SS Major Hans Lichtblau, whose job is to use science to create better soldiers to fight for the Nazi cause; the Polish shtetl-born Shlomo Libowitz, who, after the war, moves to Israel; and Anton Epstein, an assimilated Jew from Prague, who commits to the Communist cause after the war. The lives of these three characters are intertwined and their decision-making is what informs the work’s ethical basis.
It doesn’t spoil the plot to note that Shlomo and Anton survive the war because readers immediately meet them at two points in their lives: the 1940s, when Germany has begun persecuting Jews, and in the 1980s. In the later time period, Shlomo is part of a group that searches for and kills Nazis who managed to hide their identities after the war. His group is not connected to Mossad: it is funded by independent rich Jews, many from the United States. However, a different disaster – the loss of his soldier son during the first days of Israel’s war with Lebanon – has left Shlomo feeling bereft. His sabra wife, Rivka, wants him to stop before he dies in an action. However, in a section that brilliantly shows how the author’s understated prose creates great emotion, after Rivka learns the man he will be seeking this time is Lichtblau, she quietly takes his hand and notes that they have to go home so she can pack his suitcase.
Anton has had his post-war dream of a socialist utopia betrayed by the Soviet Union. Expelled from the Czechoslovakian Communist party for supporting a more liberal version of socialism, he was also removed from his hospital and teaching posts and exiled to the countryside. Now alone after the death of his wife, the KGB offers him a chance to redeem himself by traveling with one of its operatives to recover Lichtblau’s research. Anton debates what he should do, but the idea of punishing Lichtblau and returning to his former life is attractive. What is interesting is that at this point in the novel, Shlomo and Anton have not met each other or Lichtblau in the 1940s timeline. This means that readers have yet to discover what Lichtblau did that would impel them to search for him, which also begs the question of whether or not the person they both seek is really Lichtblau. Although the two search for different reasons, they are willing to risk their lives for what might be called either justice or revenge, a concept readers may debate.
What makes “The Feeling of Iron” so remarkable is the breadth and depth of the characters. Readers are able to see the world through Lichtblau’s eyes, as he seeks to create soldiers who will bring about a greater Germany and rid the world of unworthy races. His firm belief in German superiority allows him to discount the worth of the lives of those he believes are beneath him. Other German reactions to the Nazi cause are also shown. For example, one minor character, Martha Kernig, is only concerned with creating a good life for herself and her two children. After bad experiences with Soviets, including the death of her husband, the Nazis have given her a better life and a future. Although she is not concerned with politics, she believes the Poles who live in the area are little better than savages and doesn’t care how the Nazis treat them.
However, a different type of German, Baron Wilheim von Lehndorff, looks down at those he considers Nazi upstarts and works against them. His life is tied to the land of his ancestors and all they fought for over the centuries. His protests against what was being done to the Poles and the Jews have earned him house-arrest, along with being forced to host Lichtblau, his lackeys and his experiments. What makes von Lehndorff such a fascinating character is that readers can despise some of his ideas about kin and blood, while also admiring his actions and his defense of what he sees as the honor of his country, something handed down to him as a heritage from previous generations of von Lehndorffs.
The idea of whether it’s possible to settle all of one’s accounts in life floats beneath the surface of the novel. However, even as prior accounts are settled, new ones arise. The author of “The Feeling of Iron” is not easy on anyone and that includes some actions taken by Israel in 1948 and the United States in South America during the 1980s. Readers may debate whether the ending of the novel is totally satisfying, but the more important question is whether Shlomo and Anton will ever feel they have done enough to avenge the past. This compelling work challenges readers to explore the ethical decisions all of its characters faced and, perhaps, relate those feelings to contemporary times.